


This Place of Wrath and Tears

by roseygal99



Series: BatFam Angsty/Whumpy Stuff [5]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Constantine (Comic)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:15:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseygal99/pseuds/roseygal99
Summary: A crack of thunder dragged Bruce’s gaze upwards, and he squinted into pouring rain, the dark swirling clouds. He glanced back down; his oxfords were partially submerged in mud. The police station was gone, and before him was a gravestone, new and unweathered, the grass still not having filled in the freshly placed dirt, bouquets not yet withered.“Master Bruce.” Alfred’s voice, weary and aching, was barely audible over the storm. “I do believe it is time, sir.”ORBruce is no stranger to nightmares, but what if they're more than that?
Series: BatFam Angsty/Whumpy Stuff [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2049657
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	This Place of Wrath and Tears

Bruce skidded down the hall, socked feet sliding on polished hardwood, and waited, listening until–

There it was again. That piercing, grating wail that had sheared through his dreams like a razor, wrenching him awake. He hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep in the study until he was already racing out of the room, darting down darkened hallways.

At first, the sound had seemed to come from everywhere at once, and he’d searched blindly, desperation unfurling in his chest like poison as sweat prickled along his skin until finally, after what could have been hours or days, he’d been able to isolate the sound.

Now his feet carried him to the closed door of a little-used guest room in the east wing. Only when his open hand was hovering just inches from the wood did he remember that no one else was supposed to be home right now.

Alfred had flown out to London to attend the wedding of an old friend. Damian was spending a few days at Titans Tower in preparation for an upcoming mission. And none of the other dozen or so likely suspects had given him any indication that they’d planned to stop by or spend the night. Not that he required or even expected them to do so, but usually he would find some evidence that they were around. If not a text or a greeting in person, then a discarded pair of shoes or the remnants of a snack on a coffee table, maybe extra dishes on the rack.

He considered the possibility of a break-in, but the thought was dismissed almost as quickly as it appeared. Bruce had long since girded the manor’s security, cognizant of every possible worst-case scenario ranging from a disgruntled Wayne Enterprises employee to one of his enemies managing to trace him back here. The gate itself was locked with an oft-changed passcode, the pale stone walls around the perimeter were a little over ten feet tall, and motion sensors and cameras monitored every inch of the massive estate, set to alert him whenever someone crossed the property line. There was no way anyone could get in without him knowing, especially an intruder.

But when gentle whimpers trickled under the door, Bruce pushed it open and barreled in anyways, driven by instinct rather than any semblance of logical thought. The room appeared empty at first, and he progressed slowly, his light steps rendered silent by the plush carpet. He circled the bed and found a small form sitting on the floor, face buried in knees and illuminated by moonlight streaming in through the window.

The child trembled as he rocked back and forth, gasping and crying softly, his tiny frame drowning in a massive duster. Bruce’s first thought was

_Damian._

But that wasn’t right – that couldn’t be right. He hadn’t known Damian when he was this small, and the skin on this boy’s hands was fair rather than deep and warm.

He crouched, debating whether or not to reach out and touch him.

“Hello,” he offered quietly, wondering if this was someone he was supposed to know. A friend of someone’s that he had agreed to look after for a while? “Are you all right?”

The boy froze. His tiny hands clutched at his arms, but he made no move to respond or lift his head.

“My name is Bruce Wayne,” Bruce continued. “Can you tell me yours?”

The boy’s shoulders began to shake again, and he mumbled something, the words swallowed up in the mess of trench coat and limbs.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

“I couldn’t…” the boy whispered.

Bruce decided to take the risk and placed a hand on the kid’s narrow, quivering back. He waited, and eventually the boy turned his head just enough to peer up at Bruce with one, glistening eye. The gaze was desperate and anguished in a way that made the older man think of shattered glass and open graves; of things irrevocably broken and empty and dark. To see that in the eyes of someone so young nearly made him flinch.

“I couldn’t… save them,” the boy choked. He lifted his head all the way then and gazed up at the sky through the window, tears spilling silently over dark eyelashes and pale cheeks. His lip quivered, chest and shoulders jerking with small gasps, but he remained quiet.

When he wiped his nose and turned to face Bruce again, there was a streak of red across his face, and Bruce noticed that the boy’s hands, his too-large trench coat were covered in blood.

“It’s my fault,” the boy continued, and though his voice was thick with emotion, the words themselves were decisive. “It’s all my fault. Every time.”

Bruce couldn’t find his voice, mesmerized as he was by this bloodied stranger, by the darkness in his eyes, the grief that emanated out from him and swallowed the entire room like an entity unto itself.

A deep voice from behind him rumbled, “Bruce,” and Bruce turned and looked, squinting into florescent lights.

The dark bedroom faded and warped into the bustling, brightly lit Gotham police station. A young detective stood over him, hands shoved into pockets, face twisted with regret and anger and sorrow. He squatted and patted Bruce’s head before gently rolling the sleeves of the trench coat up and taking the small, bloody hands in his own large, rough ones. He began wiping them off with a dampened rag.

“Your coat…”

“Keep it,” the detective said as he worked the cloth between Bruce’s trembling fingers. “Mr. Pennyworth will be here soon.”

Bruce’s mouth opened slightly, but no sound came out. He closed it again, watching as the man scrubbed gently at his palms and the pale rag turned rusty. When he finished, the crescents of Bruce’s nails, his skin, were still covered in russet stains, but it was just a shadow now, the ghost of what had been. By tomorrow, they would be clean.

But something deep in the center of his chest told him that he would never see them the same way again. That in his mind, they would always be red and dripping. He was certain that it would leech into everything he touched from now on, that the rest of his life would be streaked with crimson.

A crack of thunder dragged Bruce’s gaze upwards, and he squinted into pouring rain, the dark swirling clouds. He glanced back down; his oxfords were partially submerged in mud. The police station was gone, and before him was a gravestone, new and unweathered, the grass still not having filled in the freshly placed dirt, bouquets not yet withered.

“Master Bruce.” Alfred’s voice, weary and aching, was barely audible over the storm. “I do believe it is time, sir.”

Bruce made no move towards him, his eyes now glued to the headstone, the name there. The carved letters shifted and morphed, flickering and out of focus like an illusion.

Martha Wayne. Thomas Wayne. Jason Todd.

The name mutated almost faster than he could read it.

Tim Drake. Dick Grayson. Cassandra Cain. Stephanie Brown.

Damian Wayne. Barbara Gordon. Jim Gordon. Clark Kent. The rest of the League. The rest of the city.

Everyone.

Bruce’s hands spasmed into fists at his sides; his jaw locked, and his shoulders hunched forward as he released a guttural, animalistic roar. The heavens boomed their reply.

He dropped to his knees then his palms, fingers disappearing into the dark sludge, and he sobbed. He was only vaguely aware when the rain stopped abruptly, replaced by a dull pattering sound, and Alfred crouched beside him with the umbrella held over them both.

A thin hand rubbed his back as Bruce wept, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He felt movement at his side and glanced over just enough to see the boy in the too-big duster sitting in the grass beside him, knees curled to his chest. He was staring at the headstone, dry despite the driving rain, though his face still glistened with tears, his hands still dripped with blood.

As if sensing Bruce’s gaze, the boy looked at him and there was a deep sadness in his eyes, a morbid lack of surprise as if to say, _What did you think would happen?_

He realized that rain was hitting him again. Alfred was gone.

Everyone. Every time.

Bruce couldn’t tell whether it was he or the boy who spoke, but the voice rang clear and loud over the rain as if it came from somewhere within him when it said, “I couldn’t save them.”

Mud crept up his wrists and forearms, swallowed his knees and shins as he sank into the ground. And he let it happen, suddenly profoundly exhausted by the idea of tomorrow.

And tomorrow. And tomorrow.

It would be better – just, even – to let the cold earth consume him as it had his parents, his friends, his children before him. To succumb to the fate to which he had damned them all the moment he entered their lives. They deserved that much, at least. His final act of justice.

He had spent so much time certain that the only way he could do right by them, by the people he’d lost, was to purge evil from the streets of Gotham. But perhaps it was he, all along, who needed to be removed. He, who despite all of his training, still routinely failed to save those closest to him. He, who despite decades of work, still failed to wrest the city of his birth from the clutches of more powerful demons.

He, who had utterly failed in his mission and would continue to do so tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

The sludge progressed towards his shoulders and hips. The ground had taken on a deep, burgundy hue, and his nostrils were now full of the earthy scent of damp soil and the metallic bite of blood. He closed his eyes as it grazed his chin, his lips.

“Ah, _shite_!”

Stale cigarette smoke filled the air as two hands plunged into the mud and yanked Bruce back by his shoulders, away from the stone of a thousand names, away from the bloodied earth, away from the storm. The world evaporated into a pale light, and Bruce’s eyes flew open with a gasp.

He was staring at a wood paneled ceiling, his head and stomach churning. He closed his eyes again almost immediately, biting back the urge to be sick.

“Bloody told you I’d get ‘im out, didn’t I?” an arrogant, if somewhat shaken voice panted nearby.

“Batman?” This voice was too familiar; and Bruce’s mind filled with the memory of a headstone, a name. His hands still felt slick with blood and soil, his arms and legs coated in it. He kept his eyes closed and willed himself to focus on what was tangible.

“John. What’s wrong with him?”

There was a shuffle of movement, and the arrogant voice came from much closer when it said, “He’s fine, mate. Just give the old man a second to sort ‘imself out.”

Suddenly a hand was on Bruce’s shoulder, firm and grounding. “Batman. You’re okay. You’re all right.”

Bruce took a breath and ground his teeth, bracing himself for a new horror as he opened his eyes. Nightwing sighed and smiled.

“Good,” he breathed. “You really… I was really…” The young man stopped, pivoted. “How are you feeling?”

They were in an old, unfamiliar study, Bruce laid out on a stiff couch. Entire bookshelves were toppled, a lamp shattered, scorch marks on the curtains and walls. Candles floated in the air around them, burned nearly to the quick, and the air smelled of incense and dust and the unique, almost citric tang of recent magic. In the corner, a sorceress was unconscious and bound in glowing chains while John Constantine leaned against a desk, stretching his neck and sighing.

Slowly, Bruce began to piece things together, memories coming in broken, disordered fragments.

“Madam Luce,” Nightwing supplied as if reading Bruce’s mind. “She got the jump on us while we were looking for info about the creatures in eastern Qurac. One second, we were fine then the next you were down. She got in your head.”

“That she bloody did,” John muttered, tossing an accusatory glance Bruce’s way. “Which is why I told you lot not to get mixed up in this business in the first place. You’ll only get yourselves killed. Or worse.”

Nightwing flexed his jaw and exhaled through his nose, but otherwise ignored him. “Are you okay?”

Bruce. No, _Batman._ He was not Bruce now. The weight of the cowl and body armor reminded him as much as he pushed himself upright.

“Yes,” Batman said, and he noticed when John shot him another look.

As Batman swung his legs around so that his feet were on the floor, John said, “Oi, Smaller Bat–”

“Nightwing.”

“Whatever. Be a doll and ring Zatanna for me? She’ll want to know we’ve got Lucy here. The birds’ve got some history.”

“Sure,” Nightwing said. “But I don’t have her–”

John tossed him an old flip phone. “It’ll be under ‘Magic Mummy.’ Don’t ask.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Nightwing murmured, cringing a little. He glanced at Batman, a question, and Batman nodded once.

After Nightwing had jogged from the room, John leaned forward with a cigarette in his lips to light it on one the floating candles. Batman stood and found himself drifting somewhat aimlessly around the room. His mind still felt scattered, a million thoughts crashing and shattering against each other, and a distant, horrible suspicion left him uncertain whether or not he was truly back in the real world.

Everything still felt strangely unbalanced and weightless; he struggled to discern whether this was an aftereffect of the spell or a sign of something worse. As he dragged a gloved hand along a portion of singed wallpaper, he half expected to leave a streak of blood in his wake.

“It’ll do that to you,” John said from behind him.

“What?”

“That spell. _Her_ spell. You feel like you’re still there, don’t you? Like you’re still not sure which way is up and which way’s Canada. Who’s to say if you walk through that door right now you won’t end up in another nightmare?”

Without meaning to, Batman glanced towards the door and his stomach bottomed out. He swallowed hard and looked away.

“Do you want to… er… well, do you want to talk about it, then?” John asked.

Batman’s eyes flicked up and he watched the Brit fiddle with the cigarette in his hand as if trying to memorize something written there.

“Would _you_?”

“Oh, bloody hell no. But I’ve been reliably informed that I can be something of an arse and that I ought to work on my ‘people skills’ so this is me working.” He shrugged, took a long, sucking drag from the cigarette and snuffed it on the desk beside him. “But then again, look who I’m talking to.”

Batman could have smirked at that, but instead he turned his attention to the only standing bookcase, ran his finger along the spines. “What was it?” he asked.

“Hm?”

“The spell. What I saw, it was so…”

“Right.” He heard John sigh. “Well, at the risk of coming off an absolute tosser: it’s magic, mate. Plain and simple. I could try to explain it, but I’d wager that would only be more infuriating.”

“I understand that,” Batman ground out, a little more harshly than he’d intended. “What I want to know is what was the nature of the spell. I saw things that already happened. Things from my past. But I also saw things that haven’t happened. And now I just need… You have to tell me if…” He clenched his jaw again, could practically taste the mud on his tongue, could feel the grit of it on his teeth. Panic was creeping up into his throat, and he tamped it down hard.

“Mate,” John began, more gently than Batman had ever heard him speak. Somehow, it only made him more uneasy. “Are you asking if the visions were prophetic?”

Batman didn’t respond, but his assent must have been clear in the weighty silence that followed. John sighed loudly.

“Is that what’s got you so–” He stopped short. “Christ, Bats.”

“I have to know,” Batman murmured, his voice hoarse. “I have to.” He turned to look at John directly. It would be easier this way to tell if the other man was lying or softening the truth.

There was something like pity in John’s eyes, and pain. He opened his mouth at the same time that Nightwing sauntered in, tossing the phone back.

“Zatanna said to torch her,” Nightwing said. “She wouldn’t elaborate.”

“That’s my girl,” John sighed fondly, his entire manner shifting on a dime.

Nightwing paused and looked back and forth between the two of them, as if realizing belatedly that he’d interrupted something. “Should I…?”

“No,” Batman cut in. “We should go. By now the Order will have noticed Madam Luce’s absence. They’ll be sending people to search for her.”

“Now that’s a party I’d like to miss,” John said. He murmured a quick incantation and waved his hands. A moment later, Madam Luce was levitating beside him, her head limp as he strode from the room. At a glance, you’d almost think they were walking together. With the glamor, that was probably exactly what they were doing.

On the sidewalk, the early morning sky was thick with storm clouds. Batman stared up at them, trying not to think of blood and graves and sinking, sinking, sinking…

John slapped his forehead. “Oh, bother! I’ve gone and forgotten my lighter. Smaller Bat, would you be a peach–”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nightwing sighed, turning to jog back up the steps. John smiled sweetly after him until he’d disappeared back into the old home.

Then he turned to Batman, his gaze hard. “ _Invictus_ , mate.”

“What?”

“ _Invictus._ The poem.”

“ _I am the master of my fate; the captain of my soul._ ”

“Precisely. Now, the shite you saw? It could happen. All of it, just like it did in your dream. But that’s just a possibility. One of trillions. Just a bunch of threads stretching out in endless directions waiting to be pulled and added to the dazzling if also terrifying quilt that is your life. It’s up to you to decide how that turns out.

“And believe me,” he added with a wry smirk, “I am fully aware of the irony here. Me of all people prattling on about self-determination while half my job has me dealing with the powers of fate and destiny on a near constant basis. Hell, I had tea with Dr. Fate just last Tuesday. And I’ve snogged two of the Grecian Fates, myself.” He frowned, running a hand through his scraggly blond hair. “Hm. I should probably ring them…”

“John.”

“Right. My point is that’s just the sort of blatant, arse-backwards contradiction that I’m happy to live with. Keeps me sane.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked up as it started to rain. The drops left dark blotched on John’s pale duster, and Batman realized with a jolt how similar it was to the one he’d been given so long ago. “Gives me a reason to look forward to tomorrow.”

Batman followed John’s gaze, tipping his head back to let the drops roll over his face. He closed his eyes as he took a deep, measured breath. “Hn. Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Listen, I’m just trying to keep you from going ‘round the bend here. You’d be a bloody awful nuisance if you went to the other side.”

Batman shot him a sidelong glance. For such a prolific conman, John was doing a terrible job of it now.

Behind them, the front door swung open.

“There is,” Nigthwing announced, “no lighter.”

John slapped his forehead again, chuckling. “You know what, lad? I’ve just remembered I left it in my other pants.”

“Fu–”

“Tootles!” John waggled his fingers pleasantly then disappeared in a blink, along with Madam Luce.

“I really hate that guy,” Nightwing grumbled, coming back down the steps.

“He really is something, isn’t he.”


End file.
